Certain things in a child's life can be immensely stressful and difficult to cope with. These include loss, serious illness, death of a loved one, bullying, and violence or abuse, all of which can lead to extreme anxiety in children.
Exam time is also usually a heightened time of stress and comes on the back of the Covid-19 pandemic, which affected many households – some severely in terms of loss of employment and income – and children would also have felt and noticed the effect of this.
Many well-meaning parents try to protect anxious kids from their fears, but overprotecting can make anxiety worse. Here are pointers for helping kids cope with anxiety without reinforcing it.
1. Don't try to eliminate anxiety; do try to help a child manage it.
The best way to help kids overcome anxiety is to help them learn to tolerate it as well as they can. Over time the anxiety will diminish.
2. Don't avoid things just because they make a child anxious.
Helping children avoid the things they are afraid of will make them feel better in the short term, but it reinforces the anxiety over the long run.
3. Express positive - but realistic - expectations.
Don't promise a child that what she fears won't happen—that you know she won't fail the test—but do express confidence that she'll be able to manage whatever happens.
4. Respect her feelings, but don't empower them.
Validating feelings doesn't mean agreeing with them. So, if a child is terrified about going to the doctor, do listen and be empathetic, but encourage her to feel that she can face her fears.
5. Don't ask leading questions.
Encourage your child to talk about her feelings, but try not to ask leading questions:
"Are you anxious about the big test?” Instead, ask open-ended questions: "How are you feeling about the science fair?"
6. Don't reinforce the child's fears.
Avoid suggesting, with your tone of voice or body language:
"Maybe this is something that you should be afraid of."
7. Be encouraging.
Let your child know that you appreciate how hard she’s working and remind her that the more she tolerates her anxiety, the more it will diminish.
8. Try to keep the anticipatory period short.
When we're afraid of something, the hardest time is before we do it. So, if a child is nervous about going to a doctor's appointment, don't discuss it until you need to.
9. Think things through with the child.
Sometimes it helps to talk through what would happen if a fear came true—how would she handle it? For some kids, having a plan can reduce the uncertainty in a healthy, effective way.
10. Try to model healthy ways of handling anxiety.
Don't pretend that you don't experience stress and anxiety but do let kids hear or see you managing it calmly, tolerating it and feeling good about getting through it.
Reading the Signs: What Anxiety Looks Like in Children
Anxiety disorders reveal themselves in physical and psychological ways. How an anxiety disorder manifests depends on the age of the child and the type of anxiety disorder. Because anxiety can manifest through physical symptoms, it’s important to consult a paediatrician to make sure the behaviours and symptoms are anxiety-related and not due to an underlying medical condition.
Some general symptoms:
With toddlers and young children, parents may notice increased irritability, excessive crying, tantrums as well as more difficulty self-soothing or self-regulating.
Young children may exhibit regressive behaviours such as bed-wetting (assuming the child is toilet-trained) or excessive clinginess.
In all age groups, children with anxiety disorders may exhibit physical symptoms such as stomach and headaches, frequent bathroom urges, rapid breathing, chest pains, shortness of breath, nausea and vomiting, poor appetite, muscle aches, and tension and sleeping difficulties. Some children have bouts of gagging and choking.
Psychological and behavioural symptoms include frequent reassurance-seeking, needing things done the same way and in the same order (rigidity), feeling irrationally threatened or overwhelmed by new experiences; avoiding any situation— school, people and places, events, social gatherings—triggers or fuels their anxiety.
Hypervigilance means the child is on high alert and constantly monitoring their environment and keeping tabs on everything going on around them. Hypervigilant children often misinterpret innocuous cues as signs of danger. While surveilling the room is a useful talent for spies, for a child, it’s exhausting.
When Should You Seek Professional Help For Your Anxious Child?
According to the American Academy of Paediatrics and our experts, you should consult a psychologist or psychiatrist with experience treating children with an anxiety disorder when the child’s behaviour or anxiety:
Disrupts the household and interferes with family activities and life
When the child gets upset multiple times a day or week
When the frequency and intensity of the fears escalate (may be accompanied by acting out, meltdowns, screaming, yelling, or tantrums).
When the anxiety leads to significant avoidance behaviour. The child continually and consistently makes excuses to avoid school or other situations that may provoke anxiety.
When the disorder is making it difficult for the child to interact with, make or keep friends.
When sleep habits are disrupted
When you begin to see compulsive behaviours and rituals such as repeated hand washing, counting, checking things and when the child refuses or is unable to leave the house without performing these rituals.
When your child shows a pattern of physical symptoms that are disruptive and detrimental to the child (vomiting, stomach aches, etc.)
When your child experiences panic attacks characterized by heart palpitations, sweating, nausea, hyperventilation.
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